Thoughts of an activist lawyer

Representative Harry L. Roque filed on his first day in Congress a bill seeking to institutionalize universal health care in the country.

In his exploratory note, Roque said the Universal Health Care for Filipinos bill, “[guarantees] that every Filipino receives the medical treatment he needs with the financial assistance he deserves.”

Roque also filed a bill that seeks to accord protection to journalists at risk. Since the EDSA People Power Revolution and the restoration of democracy in the country in 1986, there have been 172 journalists killed in the line of duty in the Philippines. The massacre of 58 people, including 32 media workers, in Maguindanao province in 2009 holds the record for the “deadliest single-day attack anywhere in the world on journalists.”

The anti-endo bill provides that “where a fixed-term employee who has been continuously employed on fixed-term contracts for four years or more is re-engaged on a fixed-term contract without his continuity being broken, the new contract has effect under the law as a permanent contract unless the renewal on a fixed-term basis was objectively justified.”